(a) Technical Field
The present invention relates to a composition comprising chlorella extract for preventing or treating liver diseases.
(b) Background Art
The liver is a very important organ responsible for various metabolism, detoxification, decomposition, synthesis and secretion in a body, and specifically, its functions are as follows. First, the liver has a function of controlling energy metabolism, and it metabolizes all nutrients absorbed from foods into materials producing energy and supplies them to the entire-body or stores them. Second, the liver has functions of synthesizing, storing and distributing about 2,000 kinds of enzymes, albumin, serum proteins of clotting factors, bile acid, and lipids such as phospholipids and cholesterol. Third, the liver has a function of secreting various metabolites through a bile duct to the duodenum, and it plays an important role to sustain life due to its immune function. Finally, the liver detoxifies medicines, toxic materials, alcohols and the like due to its detoxification and decomposition functions. However, because this detoxification function of the liver damages the liver cells easily, it may induce medicine-induced, toxic or alcoholic liver diseases.
The alcoholic liver diseases may be mainly classified into alcoholic fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic liver cirrhosis according to clinical symptoms, and it may be caused by drinking alcohol of 60-80 g per a day for about 10 years. The alcoholic fatty liver is caused by accumulation of cholesterol and triglycerides in liver cells by excessive alcohol drinking, and it may be recovered as soon as stop drinking, but it may develop into hepatitis by continuous drinking. The alcoholic hepatitis is a condition of generating liver cell necrosis and inflammation, and it shows various symptoms such as, tiredness, loss of appetite, weight loss, jaundice, fever, right upper quadrant pain and the like, and in about 40% of the patients having the alcoholic hepatitis, it may develop into the alcoholic liver cirrhosis. The alcoholic liver cirrhosis is a state wherein the liver can't be recovered to normal, and it shows various symptoms such as entire-body tiredness, loss of appetite, ascites, esophageal varicose vein, hemorrhage, hepatic encephalopathy, coma and the like. The prognosis is worse prognosis than the liver cirrhosis caused by hepatitis virus, and it is known that 50% of fatal cases caused by the terminal liver disease are resulted from alcohol in Europe and America.
Therefore, in order to reduce the fatality rate caused by the alcoholic liver diseases, the alcoholic fatty liver as the initial stage of the alcoholic liver diseases should be treated properly. However, up to now, proper remedies to treat the said diseases have not been developed yet.
Meanwhile, microalgae are planktons typically found in freshwater and sea water, for example, blue-green algae, diatoms, dinoflagellates, green algae, red algae, cryptomonadaceae and cryptomonads, It is estimated that more than 200,000 species exist of which about 35,000 species are described throughout the world. The microalgae, capable of performing photosynthesis like general plants and synthesizing glucides and proteins therein, are in charge of primary production in freshwater and sea water, and play an important role as a producer of the food chain.
Chlorella is a spherical single-celled plant, about 8 μm in diameter belonging to a genus of green algae such as green layer. Because the chlorella is nonsexual in reproduction, but it forms daughter cells when cell materials are increased by photosynthesis, it's reproduction is more efficient than sexual reproduction. Further, it makes organic matters by photosynthesis, and has high coefficient of utilization during photosynthesis and high protein content.
However, the clinical effect of the chlorella extract on the liver diseases as a medicine has not been disclosed yet.
Accordingly, the present inventors identified that the chlorella extract improves liver injury index so as to complete this invention.